Girlfight! The Battle of The Aging Black Divas: Tina Vs. Aretha

Aretha Franklin's response to Tina Turner statement in USA TODAY

"I have always appreciated what Tina Turner has to offer and had quietly cheered her on after Ike and her subsequent success. However, with respect to her statement concerning my ego (in saying, 'Her ego must be so big to think she was the only one … that's how queens are') clearly she was talking about herself as she described herself as the 'Queen of Rock' and saying 'that's what Queens do' — particularly since she does not have a clue as to who I am in view of the fact that we have never met."

Oh, it gets better family.

"I never figured her to resort to tacky press just to sell a few tickets. I understand and I know that the concert market is down where ticket sales are concerned. I really had put her in a different class — higher than that.

"Finally, no one has been more gracious or complimentary to their peers than I have and I am confident and secure enough to do so, unlike some others. I wish Ms. Turner all the best, as I always have. Perhaps one day we will meet."

MAJOR GRAMMY DRAMA: BEYONCE, QUEEN ARETHA IS NOT AMUSED!!!

Franklin Slams Beyonce's Grammy Intro Of Tina Turner

When the undisputed "Queen of Soul" is unhappy, she's one Black woman that ain't afraid to check-ya! On Tuesday, mama slammed Miss Bey's intro of the legendary Tina Turner at Sunday's Grammy Awards, in which Knowles called Turner, not Franklin, "The Queen." GIRL FIGHT Y'ALL!!!

"I am not sure of whose toes I may have stepped on or whose ego I may have bruised between the Grammy writers and Beyonce," Aretha Franklin said in a statement issued by her publicist. "However, I dismissed it as a cheap shot for controversy."

In the first few seconds of Knowles' intro to Turner's performance, she name-dropped Franklin and a long list of famed female singers. Then the "Crazy in Love" chanteuse focused on Turner. "There is one legend who has the essence of all of those things: the glamour, the soul, the passion, the strength, the talent," said Knowles, strutting in hot pants. "Ladies and gentlemen. Stand on your feet and give it up for the queen."

At a party later that night, Knowles called Turner her "ultimate icon." Still, Franklin ended her brief criticism on a gracious note, thanking the Grammys and the voting academy and saying, "love to Beyonce anyway."

Known for such hits as "Respect" and "Chain of Fools," Franklin tied with the Clark Sisters for best gospel performance trophy for her duet "Never Gonna Break My Faith" with Mary J. Blige.

E-mails to Knowles' publicist Yvette Noel-Schure and calls and e-mails to Recording Academy spokeswomen Jaime Sarachit and Barb Deghan were not immediately returned. [AP]

AMY WINEHOUSE WINS BIG, BUT IT'S BEYONCE & TINA THAT WORK US AT THE GRAMMYS

Beyonce And Tina Turner Perform "Proud Mary"

So, those legendary legs and legendary voices united at the Grammy Awards and left everyone breathless.



Winners Kanye West and Amy Winehouse also performed, although Winehouse was other the other side of the pond via satellite. Rihanna, Feist, Alicia Keys and Aretha Franklin are also on tap, although Barack Obama is stealing everyone's thunder.

You know my president in waiting also won tonight, not just beating Hillary Clinton in the state of Maine, but also in the Grammy audio book category. I am loving Black History Month right about now!

Running the show with her three Black British brothers in the background, it was definitely the Rehab star's night, winning 5 out of 6 nods.

Ike's Dead Tina, So Those "What's Love Got To Do With It" Nightmares Should Go Away Now!

Music Legend-Turned-Villain Ike Turner Has Left The Building Family

Long before Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry burst into the public eye, Ike Turner was playing rock ‘n’ roll. The 76-year-old music legend played his last tune today, passing away in his suburban San Diego home. I'd pay to be a fly on the wall over's at Tina's house right about now.

The Black man who became the poster boy for keepin' a good sister down, Turner changed the course of modern music. His relationship with Tina Turner, with all it's bloody, bruising drama, was played to delicious perfection in the 1993 Anglea Bassett and Laurence Fishburne hit film“What’s Love Got to Do With It.”

Sexually abused and having witnessed the lynching of his father while growing up in Clarksdale, Mississippi, Turner He learned piano by watching Pinetop Perkins play in a friend’s basement. He mastered piano and guitar, and worked as a band leader and talent scout through the ‘50s, participating in historic sessions by B.B. King, Otis Rush, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Elmore James, Little Milton, Junior Parker and countless others. Turner moved his Kings of Rhythm to St. Louis later in the decade, playing a high-octane brand of blues, boogie and rock ‘n’ roll. When Annie Mae Bullock barged onto Turner’s stage one night between sets and demanded to sing, well... the rest was history.

Ike and Tina Turner became one of the biggest soul acts of the ‘60s and ‘70s, crossing over to the rock audience thanks to collaborations with Phil Spector (Tina Turner sang lead on “River Deep, Mountain High”) and the patronage of the Rolling Stones, who asked the duo to open the band’s legendary 1969 North American tour. Ike Turner’s arranging and playing provided a backbone for hits such as “A Fool in Love,” “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine” and an incendiary remake of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary.”

But it was the vivacious, raw-voiced Tina Turner who got all the attention. Their relationship spiraled downhill in the ‘70s as Ike Turner plunged deeper into drug addiction, and Tina left him in 1976. Her 1984 comeback album, “Private Dancer,” outsold any of her recordings with Ike, and in 2000 she became the top-grossing female artist in concert history. Meanwhile, Ike Turner’s life unraveled. He was arrested 11 times in the ‘70s and ‘80s for various offenses, mostly drug-related. In 1990, he was convicted of possessing and transporting cocaine, and the next year, as he and Tina were being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he was sitting in a prison cell, completing an 18-month sentence.

When his days with Tina Turner were brought up in the 2001 Tribune interview, Ike Turner was defiant. "I did a lot of wrong things in my life, and a lot of good things, and I don't regret any of them,” he said. “The only regret I have -- I made one mistake in my life, during the time I was doing drugs -- I signed a contract with Walt Disney [makers of ‘What's Love Got to Do With It'] giving them permission to portray me in this movie any way they wanted... They totally exaggerated everything she said in the book on the screen, and that sabotaged my career."

In a 1993 Tribune interview, Tina Turner described a life of “torture” with Ike Turner, and said she stayed with him for 14 years only because she was the mother of their four children (two from a previous Ike Turner marriage). “It wasn’t about money, it was about having kids in school, and I wasn’t going to subject my kids to living on the streets because I couldn’t live with Ike Turner,” she said. “I was strong enough to put up with his crap until they were out of school.”

After his release from prison, Turner turned his life around. He stopped taking drugs and started performing and recording again. “He fought that devil and he has won,” said the executive who first hired Turner to a recording contract, Joe Bihari, in a 2001 Tribune interview. Turner pieced together a new Kings of Rhythm and recorded music at his home studio in San Marcos for a 2001 album, “Here and Now.” Last year, he won a Grammy Award in the traditional blues album category for "Risin’ With the Blues." He was touring and performing to the end. “It doesn’t matter if I invented rock ‘n’ roll, because it didn’t make me any money,” Turner told the Tribune. “I made $60 from ‘Rocket 88’: Six-oh. I don’t care about the glamour or the money. I don’t care about the nominations and Grammys, all that bull. I just care about making people happy --- getting onstage and getting everybody going.”

greg@gregkot.com

Annie Mae... er... Tina Turner Sings Them Songs, Again

Since the 1993's "What's Love Got To Do With It," a film about Tina Turner and how she rose to stardom with her now deceased ex Ike Turner and how she gained the courage to break free, people have often quoted the abusive Turner ("You gonna sang them songs Annie Mae!") and have pretty much seen Ike in that one light: abusive husband.

Viewers some time ago got a chance to see the musician-ship of Ike and Tina at the peak of their career when they performed in Holland in 1971 in a vintage special concert documentary called "Ike & Tina Turner Live in '71"."

Now 68-years-young, Ms. Turner still has the moves:



Beyonce & Tina Perform "Proud Mary" At The Grammys

Those legendary legs and legendary voices united at the Grammy Awards and left everyone breathless.